Chapter Text
DOWHA.
“This is for Su-ae.” Eunhyeok said as they walked side by side to the arcade.
“For Su-ae.” Dohwa agreed, a mock serious look on his face.
“Why are you saying it like that?”
“Saying it like what?”
“…Nevermind.”
The two arrived at the tall building with flashing lights after a long stretch of silence. It was surprisingly empty despite it being six p.m.
The two just stood there by the door.
“Aren’t you gonna open the door for me?” Dohwa asked, a dumb smug glint in his eye.
He wasn’t expecting much actually. Nothing at all even. This was for Su-ae after all. It’s just that it wouldn’t hurt to push some buttons while he was at it!
Eunhyeok turned his nose up at that. “I'm not doing anything for you. This is for Su-ae.”
“Su-ae would want you to open the door for me.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Dohwa narrowed his eyes.
“Uhm… Excuse me?” A soft voice whispered from behind the both of them. “C-Can you-“
Dohwa turned and saw two young boys standing there.
“Move!” The other boy interrupted with a scowl.
“Ah! Sorry.” Dohwa moves out of the way. One of them opens the door as the other mumbles a thank you and they both go inside.
“Nice going.” Eunhyeok scoffs as he pushes the door open and slips inside.
Dohwa stares for a moment.
Eunhyeok opened the door!
A grin breaks on his face. He followed him inside and was met with the loud sounds and bright lights of the place.
The blond is momentarily reminded of the days when Su-ae had taught him in return for her books back. So maybe, technically, that was bribery. With her property. But who was ever being technical?
“Lets just-“
“Let’s play that one.” Dohwa interrupted, pointing to a game in the corner of the room. He glanced over and saw that Eunhyeok was holding a small paper cup filled with tokens. “Perfect, you already got some.”
Eunhyeok looked like he wanted to disagree but instead sighed and followed him over.
Dohwa took two tokens and slid them into the machine. With the tap of two buttons and a grab of the cheap plastic gun controller, the game booted up.
“What are you doing? Pick up yours.” He raised a brow as Eunhyeok backed up with his phone.
He looked just as confused. “We’re just here for the photos.”
“Well, I already loaded up this side for player two!”
“Why would you do that?!”
“Because- Oh, It’s starting!”
His attention was quickly shifted to the screen. Little pixelated aliens zoomed across the black galaxy sky.
Bing! Bing! Bing!
He smiled at the sounds of his kills registering into his score.
In his peripheral vision, he could see Eunhyeok go over to grab the controller and join him. His annoyed frown deepened, this time in competition as he struggled to catch up.
“She taught me how to play, y’know.” Dohwa taunted with a smirk as he glanced over.
Eunhyeok’s jaw tightened and his aim got worse. But he pretended as if he hadn’t heard him.
“I've seen her play A LOT. Maybe next time I’ll ask her to come back and give me more lessons.” He went on to say as the next level loaded.
‘A lot’ was an exaggeration but it made Dohwa chuckle to see the way Eunhyeok resorted to taking deeper breaths to calm down.
“You died!” The game speakers announced and a red flash came on Eunhyeok’s side of the screen.
“HAHAAHA!” Dohwa cackled as he pointed, earning some stares.
Eunhyeok groaned and shoved the plastic gun back into its place in the console. “I haven’t played this before.”
Tickets whirred out of the small slot of the machine as Dohwa defeated the last boss.
Snap!
The blond looks up to see Eunhyeok standing over himself with a phone in his hand.
“Don’t forget.” He pointed out as he gently shook his phone.
“I know I know,” Dohwa said as he shoved the line of tickets into his hoodie pocket.
The two bounced from game to machine, and took selfies and fake candid photos of each other. Dohwa was looking through the photos, his eyes narrowing, and swiftly deleting most of the photos with the knowledge that they didn’t look good enough.
“You really think this is enough to get the rumors off her?” Eunhyeok had been questioning the efficiency of this plan all day. And all of last week when Dohwa suggested it.
“People like to talk, we just have to give them something to talk about right?” Dohwa asked rhetorically as he began to edit a dumb pair of bunny ears over his head.
“Uh huh…”
He noticed the way Eunhyeok had looked him over and rolled his eyes.
“You got any better ideas?” Dohwa asked, now defensive as he pulled the camera back up.
Eunhyeok was behind him, crouched over the controls of the claw machine and struggling to get a keychain out of the tangle of toys.
“Cheese!” Dohwa grinned and winked towards the lens as Eunhyeok frustratedly slammed his hands down.
He chuckled and decided that he'd definitely post that one.
“YEAH!”
Dohwa jumped from the sudden yell, hands clutching his phone. That might’ve been the most emotion Eunhyeok showed all evening.
He’s crouched on the floor, grabbing his prizes from the little door.
Snap!
He took a photo of Eunhyeok holding up the two keychains victoriously. He looks at the smug smile on his face. He wouldn’t post that one but since it was blurry. But his thumb hesitated to tap the delete button. Dohwa glanced up for a split moment.
“You used all the tokens!” He complained when he noticed the empty cup. His phone slipped back into his pocket with the photo still sitting in there.
Eunhyeok rolled his eyes.
“It’s not like we needed them because we’re actually hanging out. We just needed the photos and we took a bunch.”
“Yeah, and your photos suck. Even a goldfish could take better ones.”
He merely grumbled in response before tossing over the extra prize he got from the claw machine.
Dohwa clumsily caught it and looked at it. It’s a little black cat with a scowl on its face. He can’t help but smile a bit.
It looked a little familiar…
Dohwa looked up to see Eunhyeok frowning down at his own keychain.
He was holding a little orange cat with a silly massive grin. He pocketed it before Dohwa could say anything.
“Let me see the photos,” Eunhyeok demanded as he held out his hand for the phones.
Dohwa handed it over and looked over to gauge Eunhyeok’s reactions to everything.
And he looked…
Normal.
Aka.
Bored.
But Dohwa could see a few gears turning.
Eunhyeok gritted his teeth as he went back and forth on saying something. His dark eyes darted around. “This isn’t…”
His gaze paused on a small ticket booth in the corner. The two middle school boys from earlier came crawling out of it, one laughing as the other was rolling his eyes. Dohwa followed his line of sight.
“You’re a genius!” The blond agreed to the things unsaid. He strongly patted Eunhyeok’s shoulder before he went off. He could feel the judgmental stare at the back of his head.
…
“Dohwa?” Eunhyeok couldn’t help but scrunch his nose up.
The teenager’s knees were nearly up to his chest and he took more than half of the small seat in the photo booth.
“Shut-“ Dohwa grunted as he attempted to scoot over. “Shut up and get in.”
“I am not getting in.”
“This was YOUR idea!”
“It was not! I just looked over!” He argued.
Dohwa gave him a look. All while paying to get the machine to start up. He didn’t expect much. He was ready to just have low-quality photos printed out of himself. But for some reason as the screen counted down from 3, an elbow rammed into his side. His face contorted into an expression that he would be embarrassed to have printed. Dohwa attempted to continue smiling at the camera but his eyes were crinkled with pain.
3!
“Ow!”
“It’s not my fault you’re taking up half the space!” Eunhyeok said voice strained with uncomfortableness.
2!
“I can’t move any further!”
“It’s almost like this was made for children.”
1!
“Whatever!”
Snap!
The two looked back over to see that the first photo was of them scowling at each other.
“Oh great look what you’ve done!” Dohwa exclaimed as he dramatically threw his hands up, he nearly smacked Eunhyeok in the face.
“I didn’t do anything.”
3!
“Just smile.”
2!
This time, both of them grinned.
Or well.
At least Dohwa was.
“You look like you’re constipated.” He said through his smile.
1!
Eunhyeok’s smile faltered and his harsh gaze glanced over.
Snap!
Dohwa snorted as the preview popped on the screen. “You look ugly in this one too. Wonder what Su-ae would think.”
“You’re doing this on purpose.” He scowled.
“It’s not my fault your face looks like that!”
3!
Dohwa felt uneasy as Eunhyeok continually glanced over.
2!
Sure, the both of them were smiling but a spark of competition struck suddenly.
1!
Dohwa flinched as a hand suddenly flew in front of his face.
Snap!
That bastard…
The little screen showed Eunhyeok throwing up a last-minute peace sign and subsequently blocking his face.
“Huh. Su-ae won’t be able to see you at all in this one.” Eunhyeok pointed out plainly. A smirk tugged at his lips. “I doubt she’ll mind that though…”
Dohwa didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a jaw drop, but his eyes went wide with no retort. His words got caught in his throat.
3!
The two had a strange mutual understanding that at least these last two had to be decent. Whether they could execute that plan was a different story.
2!
Dohwa decided to go something less than smart. But he was known for being hot, not smart. He threw his arm around Eunhyeok’s shoulder and pulled him in closer. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder tense.
“What are you doing?!” He immediately attempts to get out of it but the blond tightens his arm.
1!
“Look at the-” Dohwa starts to speak through his dumb smile but…
Snap!
This resulted in a photo of the two squished together, Dohwa happily smiled as Eunhyeok looked down at him with wide eyes.
The two sit in an awkward beat of silence.
“That one doesn’t look that bad,” Dohwa said as he slowly pulled his arm away.
“I guess.”
3!
“Get your keychain,” Eunhyeok said with a heavy sigh as if the mere knowledge that he was doing this hurt his head.
Dohwa grabbed it from his hoodie pocket.
2!
Eunhyeok also had his out, holding it in between them. Dohwa held his up next to him. The blond was still lost. But right as the number changed to one, he noticed.
1!
The black-haired teenager’s brows were furrowed, his eyes narrowed and his mouth in a line of withheld disgust. Just like the cat keychain in Dohwa’s hand. This realization was enough to make him laugh.
Snap!
He laughed like the orange cat in Eunhyeok’s hand.
The buzz of the machine joined the sound of Dohwa laughing in disbelief and amusement. He could see Eunhyeok’s fake scowl turn into a real one. The black-haired teen pushed open the curtain and left him to giggle alone.
“Oh god, my legs,” Dohwa complained as he came out after him.
The two quietly stretched and grumbled about their legs as the photo booth printed out their photos. Two little strips of paper were spat out into the bin. Dohwa took both into his hand, a smile growing on his face from the images. Anybody else would assume they were simply acting but the two of them knew the truth.
The other copy was snatched out of his hand. He opened his mouth to spit out some insult but stopped. It was his copy after all but for some reason, the blond didn’t expect he’d take it.
“This is good enough, right?” Eunhyeok asked, his eyes still trained on the photos.
“Yeah, we could’ve just saved the time and money and just did this,” Dohwa said as he snapped a photo of the snapshots with the funky arcade carpet as the background.
He could feel that judgmental stare again.
He felt the need to defend the hour they spent here. For whatever reason…
“You had fun! It wasn’t a complete waste of time!”
Eunhyeok simply rolled his eyes. No denial yet no confirmation.
“If that’s it…” He took a step backward.
Dohwa blinked, confused once again.
Huh?
The two just stared at each other.
Ohhhh!
“Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He smiled and waved as Eunhyeok forcefully (and extremely awkwardly) smiled back and left.
So that was that.
Dohwa made his way to the counter and glanced at all the prizes they had to offer. He frowned. Well… He could buy all the lollipops they had and that was about it. He glanced down at the strip of photos in his hand.
Hm.
He didn’t feel like hanging out here any longer.
He glanced at the two boys standing at the counter and buying all the strange little toys they could get. So he walked over and dumped all his tickets on the counter.
“Go crazy.” He said as the two gaped at him.
As he walked out, he could hear the worker quietly groan as the boys chimed with excitement.
“Thank you!” They both yelled before the door gently shut behind him.
Dohwa takes a deep breath of fresh air, eyes temporarily shutting. His eyes then go back to his screen. He couldn’t remember the last time he posted. And now he was posting himself and some other guy. He couldn’t help but pout. He wished it could’ve been Su-ae.
As he hit ‘post’ and walked off, he didn’t think about the fact that he really didn't mind the fact that it wasn't her.